Local Wisdom and Body Knowledge of Farmers in Native Chicken Raising

Abstract

The objectives of this study were: 1) to study the local wisdom of farmers
in Buriram in context of raising native chicken, 2) to study of body knowledge of farmers
from using herbs for raising in native chickens, and 3) to study the acceptance of
farmers in context of raising native chicken by herbs after training. The target group
consisted of 10 farmers in Moo 1, 9, and 15 Ban Talunglek, Tambon Talunglek,
Amphur Muang, Buriram Province. Those farmers were purposively selected using
as population samples. The farmers also had passed the training workshop on raising
crossbred native chickens and experienced in raising native chickens. Data were
collected from household interview and group discussion. Qualitative analysis was
used in this research and the analytical descriptive was presented.
The results showed that most of farmers raised chickens as free range (backyard
system) which was the conventional system as they have been done for a long
time. They used some herbs such as holy basil leaves, kaffir lime leaves, citronella
grass or custard apple leaves as floor foundation materials for controlling external
parasites. They also used some herbs for deworming internal nematodes such as
ripped betel nut. They fed the chickens by local feedstuffs such as rice bran, broken
rice, paddy rice glaucoma leaves, spinach leaves, and also wasted food from kitchen.
Concentrate feed was sometimes supplemented in the diet. There was no vaccination
program and the sick chickens were treated by medicines form animal food store
using water-mixing. After the farmers trained in the workshop on raising crossbred
native chickens and experienced in raising native chickens, they have implemented
the knowledge by raising native chickens by themselves for 13 weeks. Subsequently,
the knowledge management of using herbs for raising native chickens was evaluated
in a focus group. It was found that the farmers gained the knowledge of using herbs
for raising native chickens, feeding, good sanitation, regularly vaccination program,
collecting the data of growth performances, carcass quality, calculation of cost
production, and return profit. In addition, the target farmers had accepted the using
herbs for raising native chickens since they had knowledge and understanding about
herbs that can be used in raising native chickens.